By Maxwell Coopers - Free Malaysia Today,COMMENT There will simply be no ‘rehabilitation’ for those who have dared the Singapore state in offering alternative political ideas.
The city-state is not in any kind of a flux.
But for most of the country’s young born after 1987 the controversy surrounding the denial of a request from an ex-Marxist (or presumed Marxist) Vincent Cheng must come as something of a non-starter in the nation’s discourse.
Just why someone whose ‘sins’ against the state was never proven in the first place in a court of law, and who cannot be allowed to speak and set the record ‘straight’ about his incarceration is something that must also be befuddling aplenty.
And just why it took more than 20 odd years to take him out of the cold, is yet the other big poser.
There probably is no dearth of political opponents who gone against the Singapore state.
And the ‘harshest’ punishments if anecdotal evidence is any clue, is usually reserved for Marxist conspirators and their fellow travellers. One only needs to know to what happened to former legislator Chia Thye Poh and his banishment and consequent ex-communication from the Singapore state to know that the city-state despite all its outward manifestations of wealth and progress has little stomach for the Che Guvera type revolutionaries, of which Vincent and his cabal seemingly exuded.
Yet there is no denying that even as Singapore is known to have ‘pardoned’ former Marxists such as its former state president CV Devan Nair and the current chancellor of the Singapore Management University (SMU) Ho Kwon Ping, that magnanimity is only on condition they admit publicly of their guilt of being ex-members of the Communist Party and completely sever whatever links they still retained of their discredited political credentials.
But for those who profess otherwise such as Vincent whose guilt was never proven in a court of law it becomes increasingly untenable what to make of a case and a man whose rights as a citizen are denied all because of a lapse some two decades ago and which under the institutionalised provisions granted the Republic’s security should technically be a free man.
According to Vincent’s friend and perhaps confidante Fong Hoe Fang, “He (Vincent) was alleged to be one of the leaders of a “Marxist Conspiracy”, an allegation that he never had the opportunity to address in an open trial despite his many expensive and legal efforts to secure such a hearing. Mr Cheng was released 20 years ago on restriction orders and subsequently the orders were not renewed. I take that to mean that the authorities are satisfied that Mr Cheng has been rehabilitated and to all intents and purposes should be a free man enjoying all the privileges and performing the duties of a Singaporean”.
Dangerous malcontent
The question is not how much of a free man Vincent is, but how much freedom he should be accorded.
There has never been an occasion in living memory when Singapore had allowed former Marxists, agent provocateurs and detained racial chauvinists to speak in public for nothing more than the provocations their supposed ‘sermons’ may potentially cause.
Though that fear is more imagined than real, the problem with Vincent as it was Chia Thye Poh is neither has made a public recanting of their beliefs to completely assuage concerns.
That makes it difficult for Vincent because like Chia he is maintaining a presumed sense of ‘innocence’; a recourse he has no chance of proving in a court of law as he was detained under the draconian Internal Security Act which provides for detention without trial.
And such detentions cannot be contested in a court of law. It is a dilemma no less to say.
Vincent may be in the spirit of freedom and righteousness. But in the eyes of law, he is a dangerous malcontent.
And that’s despite him being technically in ‘the clear’ of his role more than 20 years.
And so long as that holds, Vincent like Chia Thye Poh before will languish; not because they were guilty of what they were charged and detained for, but because they have dared not to admit to their guilt.
Maxwell Coopers in a Singapore-based freelance writer and Free Malaysia Today contributor.
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